Raan stretched luxuriantly in his lair as the light of the sky-sun crept in through the window.

  A few months had passed since his injury hunting the Flamewinder Python. He hadn't hunted anything more challenging than a beast since then, though he had, on a couple of occasions, gone with some of his friends (and the aid of a Wayfinder or Coalesced dragon with nothing else to do to carry him through the Currents) to a Mortal stage Domain to help them harvest ingredients. Despite the fact that - wing aside - he could fight just fine, the others had banned him from participating in hunting the monsters they needed, much to his frustration.

  Kese would've let him fight alongside him, but he hadn't seen her since returning from their first hunt - she'd apparently visited him while he was still recovering, but since then had been dispatched across the Span on a constant string of hunts by Elder Beolkyax-Tahi.

  Thus, while he had been invited on a somewhat regular basis, he had consistently demurred after realising that nothing was going to change unless Kese returned, and slowly the others had stopped asking. It hurt, knowing that he was growing apart from them - but it was no less painful to be ordered to stay behind the others and let them protect him. To watch them get hurt, even if none as seriously as his own injury, because of him.

  Besides, it wasn't as though he was lying when he told the others he wanted to continue his research in the Hall of Bloodlines.

  After the first couple of days simply spent staring at the Bloodline documents uncomprehendingly, Raan had started to notice patterns in the rituals, and found that while the Archivists could not (or rather, would not) translate the Forging rituals for him, they usually did have information about each Forging: what aspect it was aimed to Forge, what the resultant species was according to the Well's Insight, and the like.

  Some of the more recently added Bloodlines had that information in them anyway - and more - something he'd eventually learned was because the Hall of Bloodlines had only been opened to draconic society as a whole some five centuries ago, and before then the dragons who'd scribed their Bloodlines as was their duty to the Archives had never intended anyone but their own disciples to see them, who they could pass the information too anyway.

  He'd asked for something to write with, and had been presented later that same day with a book bound in the scales of the Flamewinder Python he and Kese had killed, with no idea how the Archivists had managed to produce it so quickly. (The meat had been mostly donated to the older dragons in the Willworker stage; the snake's Fire mana had infused its body to the extent that none of the Mortal stage dragons could comfortably eat more than a bite or two without burning their mouths, and there was no sense letting the meat rot. Of course, the Willworkers could have easily found their own meals, and even a massive peak Mortal stage monster could only really feed a single dragon in the Willworker stage, but they appreciated the gesture nonetheless.)

  His initial scribbles in the book had been crude, partly because he'd never had to write anything with an enchanted quill like the one the Archivists were lending him, and partly simply because he hadn't worked out how to structure his notes. They had grown clearer as time went on, however, and both problems were slowly eroded by his growing experience.

  He'd ripped out the front pages of the book after a couple of months in annoyance at how messy they were, though his conversation with the Archivist on his first day in the Hall of Bloodlines had led him to keep the pages tucked in the back of the book, rather than throwing them away entirely.

  The front page of the book now read as follows:

  1st Stage: Willworker (Will)

  2nd Stage: Immortal (Agelessness)

  3rd Stage: Wayfinder (Mana flight)

  4th Stage: Coalesced ('Diversity'? 'Broadness of mana'?)

  5th+ Stage: ??? Secret.

  Flame: Works with alchemical preparations for breath weapon.

  Scale: Makes scales conductive to mana to let us work magic directly. Special effect with Blood?

  Blood: Physical changes - size, spines, secondary wings. Defensive mana flows.

  Core: Foundation for subsequent forgings. Amplifies mana density? (Maybe just effect of S4)

  Mind: 'Harmony between mind and body'??? possibly perfect awareness and control?

  Magic: Mana attunement? Unclear.

  Soul: Dangerous. (Tale of Aowoaokale the Mad).

  Each Forging focuses on a conjunction affinity. Not the first?

  Having gone from the adulthood ceremony to the fiery Domain with Kese, and from there to the Healers' den, it wasn't until a few days after everyone else that he'd had the chance to pick a lair of his own. There were plenty available, but he didn't really need the space and privacy that the others needed for preparing their Bloodline Forging, and so he'd chosen to stay in the surface lairs used by the adult dragons who weren't given lairs by their mentors, or chose not to live in them for one reason or another. He was the only dragon there in the Mortal stage, and that coupled with his injury meant that the other denizens had treated him like a hatchling and had spoiled him a bit at first.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  There was always food stored in a preserving formation, brought back by the various dragons who lived in the surface den with him on their idle hunts and neatly categorised by stage. Raan had been given very strict instructions to never try the higher-stage meats unless they were properly prepared by someone who knew what they were doing. After his experience with the Flamewinder Python's meat, he wasn't going to argue.

  He collected a couple of Mortal stage monsters he didn't know the name of - spiky things with Nature mana - for his breakfast from the pile, enjoying the crunch and the feel of their spines breaking in his mouth as he padded out of the den.

  He'd usually spent the first hour or so of each day methodically going through a segment of the Hall, looking out for the 'feel' he would supposedly get if a Bloodline was compatible with him, but today he headed in the other direction to the Hall of Bloodlines, into the centre of Wellheart and to the biggest nexus of draconic civilisation.

  It didn't have a true name. It had no need of one when it was the only functional settlement in the Span. Most people just called it the Spanheart, the same as the collection of Domains it was a part of.

  It was, in a word, chaos.

  Crafters, chefs, and others advertised their creations - much of it was simply free to take, a demonstration of one's skill and donation to draconic society as a whole, but some of the rarer creations would be traded for favours or bartered for other rarities in exchange.

  Raan weaved through the crowds - a relatively easy task when he was one of the bigger dragons in the Spanheart - until he was before one of the few genuine buildings in the settlement. There was a dragon standing by the door, offering directions to the various dragons coming and going, and so when he was finished directing the dragon before him in search of some kind of elixir, he stepped forward and bowed politely. "Excuse me? Senior Yerabiyav offered to teach me a little about alchemy if I came to the hall today."

  "Ah, you'll be the one he's waiting for. Go on in to the back rooms. An apprentice will guide you."

  Raan had encountered Yerabiyav by chance the previous day, in one of the rare instances of finding someone other than an Archivist in the Hall of Bloodlines, accompanied by a more familiar face in the form of one of his friends. Arpy had been offered the Golden Alchemy Bloodline by its current scion, Bilaj, and had eagerly accepted the offer - Raan hadn't seen much of him since he joined the Hall of Alchemy to begin his training, so it had been nice to have a few moments to catch up until the topic of conversation had turned to what Arpy and his mentor were actually doing in the Hall of Bloodlines. The older dragon had been collecting what looked to Raan like a Bloodline Forging ritual, only to learn that it was in fact an alchemical script.

  Yerabiyav had painstakingly explained all the differences that made it an alchemical script and not a Forging ritual - an explanation that Raan lost track of after about the second symbol - but Raan couldn't help but feel that there was some kind of similarity there. Whether that similarity would be of any use to him he had no idea. But it was a better use of his time than staring into boxes he knew - no matter how often he was told that somewhere in the Hall would be a Bloodline that would resonate with him - would have no reaction to him, and later that evening, Arpy had arrived to tell him that he'd managed to convince Yerabiyav to give Raan the same introduction to alchemy that Arpy himself had been given.

  Once past the main part of the Hall, he found it moderately less chaotic than the Spanheart outside - but only moderately. It was a much quieter kind of chaos, with only half a dozen dragons there, weaving in and out of each other and around all manner of devices and equipment he couldn't even begin to identify the purpose of, their horns glowing with the power of their Will, but it somehow felt more dangerous.

  "Raan!" Arpy scampered up to him, grinning. "You came!"

  "Of course I came," he retorted.

  "Everyone says you're spending every waking hour in the Hall of Bloodlines," Arpy shrugged, bumping shoulders with him. "Come on," he continued, beckoning Raan after him with a flick of his tail. "Senior Yerabiyav is just finishing the preparation for Senior Bilaj."

  Arpy wove through the Hall with an ease that had clearly come with months of experience. Raan felt clumsy by comparison, painfully aware of how many times someone had to move to avoid him getting in their way.

  They arrived at a tunnel that was sealed with a heavy metal slab, and Arpy sat down besides it. "So we just...wait?" Raan asked.

  Arpy nodded. "Distracting someone in the middle of a preparation can be really bad. Although when it's Senior Yerabiyav it would be more likely that we'd get hurt than the preparation go wrong," he added, casually. "That's what the gates are for, to keep the mana contained inside."

  A few minutes later, the gate swung open and Yerabiyav emerged. A rush of dissipating Fire mana followed him out. "Ah, Raan, Arpy, you're here. Just a few moments."

  He walked over to a larger metal slab and tapped on it with his horns. Raan felt a little mana rippling around him and the slab glowed with runes, but before he could ask what was going on, the Wayfinder had turned around and was padding back towards the two young dragons. "Follow me," he instructed, stepping back into the tunnel. "And seal the gate."

  Raan hooked the talon of his good wing onto the conveniently obvious extrusion on the inside of the gate and hauled it closed - with a lot more effort than he'd expected it to take.

  "There's a winch," Arpy commented, pointing to it with his tail.

  "Oh." Raan ducked his head, embarrassed, as Arpy chuckled at him and padded after Yerabiyav.